Could Wayne Couzens be a serial killer?

[nezumi]

Apologies for linking the Mirror but...

I am absolutely fascinated by evil. I watch and read true crime constantly - I am somewhat obsessed.

I thought this needed a new thread because it would derail the violence against women thread and besides, only a tiny fraction of "male violence" is murder and rape combined.

I agree with the premise that Wayne Couzens probably is a serial killer and I have quite a few reasons for it. First and formost, he's 48. It's rare for a person to graduate to such a huge, well planned crime without lots of other related crimes in the past. I'd expect not just flashing but also rape (of more than one of the many kinds of rape there are), I'd expect a general pattern of misogyny but not necessarily a history of domestic violence. When the murderer's partner is not the one murdered it raises a lot of red flags (I am not saying it is fine to murder your partner ). It would not surprise me if Couzens' wife was controlled and manipulated throughout their marriage but that he had never, ever hit or raped her. I do expect exes to come out of the woodwork and say he's violent and rapey though.

Serial killers tend to start in their early-mid 20s and they start out being crap at what they do. Wayne Couzens was not crap at what he did by the time he was 48 - it's just dumb luck the police got him on CCTV. He's obviously forensically aware and has been at least since he joined the police, in fact, he's shown a tendency over the course of his career to choose jobs where he has had power over people. He chose to dump the body 50 miles away from the kidnap scene, and lives another 25 miles further than there. They had to identify her via dental records despite the fact she was found only what... 10 days after she disappeared? That implies burning, dismemberment or another means was used to speed up decay. That speaks to someone who knows what he's doing. I highly doubt he'd have used the same disposal method or location twice, he's clearly far too intelligent for that.

I've had a shufty around missing people pages and there are indeed women missing in the South-East and London that fit the profile - I only found about 3 but that proves nothing! If he is a serial killer and he hunted in London he'd have a captive audience of women who wouldn't be missed. He had the ideal kidnap strategy, the tools, the power and the proclivity.

He's definitely done more than one - I'd bet my own actual money on it*. He won't be particularly prolific I don't think - not sure why I say that, it's just a gut feeling. I reckon... he's 48... he's maybe done 6 or 7. I hope he only did the one but... I've read way too much on the subject to be hopeful.

I'm sure the experts are on it (I wish I was one of them )

* Like, maybe a fiver

[Fishnut]

I'm kinda the opposite of you in that I hate true crime. I used to read loads of (fictional) crime novels as a teen - Patricia Cornwall, James Patterson, etc - but one day I just, I dunno, I just got revulsed with the constant litany of horrific murders, almost entirely of women, often in very sexualised ways, and stopped. I gave away all my books (I had multiple shelves of them) and never looked back.

That said, I agree that it's highly likely Couzens has raped and/or murdered before. It was so brazen that only someone entirely sure of themselves would do it that way and that doesn't sound like a first-time abductor. I wouldn't be surprised if he had a lot of "false" arrests too, as practice. I'd be interested to see if they bother looking into his arrest record for the months leading up to Sarah's death and whether there was an increase in arrests that didn't lead anywhere.

They had to identify her via dental records despite the fact she was found only what... 10 days after she disappeared? That implies burning, dismemberment or another means was used to speed up decay. That speaks to someone who knows what he's doing.

From the victim impact statements it sounds like she was badly burned. (Spoilered for graphic descriptions)
From her father, Jeremy.
Spoiler:

Her body fell apart when she was moved. Her brain and neck bones were removed for months by the pathologist and her body was difficult to preserve so we had to use the services of a specialist embalmer to enable a dignified burial.

From her sister, Katie.
Spoiler:

We couldn't even see her, she was so badly burnt. Her brain was removed from her skull to check for trauma and cause of death - I still don't know if they put her brain back in her head or whether it is lying next to her body in her coffin.

Shards of her kneecap were returned to us to be placed with her body - shards that you knocked when moving her burnt body from the fridge you had used to hide her and conceal the fire.

We are still missing her hyoid bone from her throat, which is being checked to see the force you used to strangle her, to determine how long she may have survived. We know it was broken. Her burnt body still had her necklace and one earring in her ear. The other had fallen from her ear because it had burnt off.
...
You hear her body has been found. Then you find out she has been burnt. So badly burnt you can't see her. Can't see her again to say goodbye.

The first thought you have in your head after despair and shock is - was she dead before you burnt her? Imagine that even having to be a thought. You find out no soot was found in her lungs, which suggests she was burnt after you murdered her. Imagine being relieved to hear your sister was dead before she was burnt.

I can't read those statements without welling up with angry tears. No family should have to go through that.

If he has raped and murdered before I would bet on his victims being prostitutes, homeless or otherwise vulnerable women who wouldn't be missed by many and who the police wouldn't "waste" resources looking for.

[nezumi]

<snip>
I can't read those statements without welling up with angry tears. No family should have to go through that.

If he has raped and murdered before I would bet on his victims being prostitutes, homeless or otherwise vulnerable women who wouldn't be missed by many and who the police wouldn't "waste" resources looking for.

Agreed on both counts. What he did was absolutely disgusting and nobody should ever have to go through it. I'm not given to emotion but the thought of what Sarah must have gone through and what the family are now...

It does help that I can quite easily compartmentalise the emotion I do feel - the sadness is probably balanced by the rage and therefore comes out feeling roughly neutral. Also, I have seen far worse. Although I do wonder if I should have put the OP and everything else behind spoilers. When discussing possible serial murder things do tend to get quite gory.

I have a couple of minor corrections to my earlier post - turns out he was a mechanic until joining the police. It was the family business so there's a lot of speculation I could do, but won't. I also said he seemed very clever but I just listened to the interview and... he ain't. All that means is that he's probably planned it out for longer and practiced more. He clearly thought he'd never get caught and his story was piss-poor.

I agree his arrest record would be a very interesting read but I think they should also be looking at car rentals in, frankly, most of the South -East. He apparently used his own name when renting the car, not that it would be easy not to in the UK. His countermeasure there is simply to get a rental from a different city. I think he's done it that way before. It would be a bit of a slog but I'd be asking rental companies to start digging through their records. He obviously won't have done a murder every time he rented a car but rentals would cluster around hunting excursions. It's not like police work is known for not being a slog.

It did surprise me that he'd dumped the body on his own land but I wonder if it was meant as a staging post for final dumping elsewhere - it would certainly confuse the forensics. The very fact he owns undeveloped land in the middle of nowhere is a bit of a red flag in my opinion - if I were a serial killer it's precisely what I would do - but I'd buy it in the name of a shell company or whatever*) I also strongly heard the plural when a video I watched said he'd bought builders bags. Not just one for the body he already had. The implications are that he was going to do it again. I would want to see if he's bought them before, how many, and did he have any valid reasons for buying them at the time? Same for the carpet cover he bought from Amazon. I would hope they've searched the land thoroughly and since no more remains have been announced he's either a one-hit wonder (I still think this unlikely) or he stages the bodies to other locations.

Here's another indication he's not that clever... they had some teeth to do dental comparisons from. Shoddy work, that. Having said that though, I haven't seen any indication he wouldn't have removed the teeth at the next stage of disposal.

I'd also be very interested in what he was like when he was younger and what his home was like. He comes off as a thug on camera and a bit of an idiot verbally - did he have any conditions or risk factors for violent outbursts? I am not going to blame the parents because that's far too easy for one and bad parenting =/= murderer, just as good parenting =/= not a murderer. I'd also like to know what his wife has to say - has she been a victim or was she absolutely clueless? (way more common than you'd think). One thing comes up a lot when talking about serial killers who successfully have families** and that is that they treated their family well and their SOs and children would never have suspected in a million years.

He would have had much better access to the homeless and sex workers before the pandemic. Sarah Everard is a high-risk victim from Couzens' point of view. She was immediately missed and completely blameless. Either desperation through lack of access to lower risk victims (I don't know what the impact of the pandemic in London was by March but I would strongly suspect fewer homeless and sex workers on the street) or arrogance drove him to choose her particularly. It could be a combination of both.

* I'm a bit of an armchair serial killer Me watching a serial killer documentary: "You don't want to do it like that! Tut. Rookie mistake."
** Fred West categorically does not count.

[Fishnut]

It does help that I can quite easily compartmentalise the emotion I do feel - the sadness is probably balanced by the rage and therefore comes out feeling roughly neutral.

I'm pretty much the same which is, I think, one reason I steer clear of true crime as I can very easy forget that it's real people and real lives. A couple of my jobs have involved dealing with death and compartmentalisation is vital. But when I'm doing a job I can put emotions to one side because, well, they're not mine to have. I'm there to help the people grieving and that means keeping it together, not turning into a blubbering mess. But when it's true crime it just, for me, feels quite voyeuristic and I don't like doing that. I appreciate there are ways of engaging with true crime that are not voyeuristic so I don't judge people who do engage, but I just don't feel it's possible for me.

I also said he seemed very clever but I just listened to the interview and... he ain't.

While I've not engaged in much true crime I have read around the subject and this seems to be something that keeps cropping up. We have this view - not helped by TV shows and films - that murderers are criminal masterminds who have woven elaborate deceptions to keep police off their tail. When actually they're not that smart and mostly get away with their crimes because they pick victims society, and certainly not the police, don't care about. Let's be honest, the biggest mistake Couzens made was in picking a white middle-class woman as his victim, someone the police can't so easily dismiss when she went missing.

I was reading this article yesterday about Stephen Port who murdered four men.

The killings happened between June 2014 and September 2015. Port, now 46, dumped the bodies near his flat in Barking, with three of the victims left close to St Margaret’s church... The bodies of Kovari, originally from Slovakia, and Whitworth, a chef, were found three weeks apart by the same dog walker in St Margaret’s churchyard in August and September 2014.

Yet it wasn't until Port had murdered again, in 2015, and dumped the body of Jack Taylor near the same church that police seem to have bothered doing any serious investigation. That's not the job of a criminal mastermind, that's someone relying on the fact that the police don't give a sh.t about gay men being murdered.

[Grumble]

It’s definitely possible, maybe even probable. I’m glad his crimes are at an end, at least those committed outside jail, maybe some other families will get some closure if he is found to have committed other crimes.

[Woodchopper]

I also said he seemed very clever but I just listened to the interview and... he ain't. All that means is that he's probably planned it out for longer and practiced more. He clearly thought he'd never get caught and his story was piss-poor.

He left her phone switched on and close to her while he committed the crimes. Which meant that her approximate location could be tracked retrospectively. I guess he never watched CSI, or understood the technical bits if he did.

[sheldrake]

He took a prostitute to a police social function and introduced her as such, whilst he was married to his current wife. People there knew he was married. His police colleagues routinely joked about what a sexual pervert he was.

So that sounds like the behaviour of somebody who wanted to get caught/get in trouble on some level (I struggle to believe he would behave like that because he was simply too stupid to realise the risk, because I can't picture the police having such a low recruitment bar, at least in terms of basic cognitive function, if not in terms of deeper character/morals).

[Grumble]

He took a prostitute to a police social function and introduced her as such, whilst he was married to his current wife. People there knew he was married. His police colleagues routinely joked about what a sexual pervert he was.

So that sounds like the behaviour of somebody who wanted to get caught/get in trouble on some level (I struggle to believe he would behave like that because he was simply too stupid to realise the risk, because I can't picture the police having such a low recruitment bar, at least in terms of basic cognitive function, if not in terms of deeper character/morals).

Wow. I’m glad I’ve not been reading all the background stuff. The news around the murder was horrible enough I’ve not been at all tempted to read anything else.

[Grumble]

Obviously no one thought, “this revolting man isn’t fit to be a police officer”. Which says a lot about the Met.

[Brightonian]

Re true crime books, TV programmes etc. - I avoid them if they look like they're going to be too grisly. But I watched this recently about Ted Bundy and I thought it was very good: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt11141900/ (free if you have Amazon Prime).

Almost no grisliness in fact, and instead took the form of a lot of interviews with key people who knew him or investigated the crimes: his girlfriend and her daughter, some victims, police, journalists, his college professors etc.

One striking thing was when his girlfriend rang the police to suggest Bundy was the killer. She didn't get as far as giving his name because they interrupted her, saying something like "Do you mean Ted Bundy? It's not him, he's a very poor candidate." Reminiscent of Peter Sutcliffe being repeatedly questioned but released because he didn't fit the profile.

[Fishnut]

One striking thing was when his girlfriend rang the police to suggest Bundy was the killer. She didn't get as far as giving his name because they interrupted her, saying something like "Do you mean Ted Bundy? It's not him, he's a very poor candidate." Reminiscent of Peter Sutcliffe being repeatedly questioned but released because he didn't fit the profile.

That's really interesting. It sometimes feels like police catch people more by luck than by any real effort. Putting my conspiracy hat on for a moment, I can't help but wonder if the view of killers being really smart was begun by the police in order to hide their own incompetence.

[sheldrake]

One striking thing was when his girlfriend rang the police to suggest Bundy was the killer. She didn't get as far as giving his name because they interrupted her, saying something like "Do you mean Ted Bundy? It's not him, he's a very poor candidate." Reminiscent of Peter Sutcliffe being repeatedly questioned but released because he didn't fit the profile.

That's really interesting. It sometimes feels like police catch people more by luck than by any real effort. Putting my conspiracy hat on for a moment, I can't help but wonder if the view of killers being really smart was begun by the police in order to hide their own incompetence.

Some police forces in the US IQ test applicants and screen out people whose IQs are too high. Not a joke.

[Grumble]

One striking thing was when his girlfriend rang the police to suggest Bundy was the killer. She didn't get as far as giving his name because they interrupted her, saying something like "Do you mean Ted Bundy? It's not him, he's a very poor candidate." Reminiscent of Peter Sutcliffe being repeatedly questioned but released because he didn't fit the profile.

That's really interesting. It sometimes feels like police catch people more by luck than by any real effort. Putting my conspiracy hat on for a moment, I can't help but wonder if the view of killers being really smart was begun by the police in order to hide their own incompetence.

When the police believe Cracker was a documentary

[sTeamTraen]

Obviously no one thought, “this revolting man isn’t fit to be a police officer”. Which says a lot about the Met.

It is incredibly hard for any public sector organisation (and, frankly, some large, "comfortable" private sector companies) to fire anyone, for anything short of gross misconduct when actually on duty in front of multiple witnesses, resulting in prominent media coverage. Couzens may well have done the latter at some point for all I know (before murdering Sarah Everard), but in practice, once you've got past the job interview stage and you've been accepted to start work, the number of people who have to get together and decide that it's worth the hassle of putting their heads above the parapet to get rid of someone, even if they make a negative net contribution (whether by being as appalling a human being as Couzens or just the general office a..eh.le) is quite substantial. Very often, nobody will have sufficient of an incentive to do it.

Basically, nothing will happen until the public reputational cost of not doing it exceeds the cost of doing it, and doing it usually involves admitting that you have a problem in the first place (and made a mistake in hiring the guy), whereas doing nothing leaves everybody none the wiser. Managers are lazy (because they are human) and nobody likes internal conflict.

And all of the that is true even in an organisation that otherwise consists of mostly decent people, such as the one where I used to work, which, although the place was a lot more than nominally dedicated to human rights, was unable to fire an overtly racist employee who stood for elected office for a racist party --- which was actually something we could have done her for under the rules. When the organisation itself is not exactly squeaky-clean, like the Met, you can basically forget about anything happening until, as in this case, it's too late.

[sheldrake]

I dont think police officers can be fired for cheating on their spouse (adultery isnt a crime, its just part of somebody’s private life) and prostitution is only actually illegal in certain circumstances (paying somebody to come to an even lt with you wont be one of them). If they ignored complaints about him driving around with his pants around his ankles exposing himself, as its reported he did, then that would be more serious.

[Millennie Al]

While it is certainly true that prostitution isn't illegal in England, it is subject to sufficient prejudice in current society that prostitutes are much easier to subject to criminality - especially violence. That same prejudice makes his employment of an escort for a wedding look very bad (I could imagine a wealthy couple deciding to do it as a joke if the wife couldn't go - especially if it would wind up some other guest, but nothing about the story suggests that was his attitude). Couzens also had another incident where a prostitute turned up at his workplace and refused to leave until he was called back from patrol and went to an ATM to get money to pay her. It would be a good idea to track her down and verify she is still alive. Given also that prostitutes are at greater risk of murder (due to the fact that their work requires them to be alone with someone in circumstances which often need to be kept secret), I'm sure there are detectives already investigating the possibility that Couzens has hired someone and killed them, and I could easily believe that he has done so several times. While covid regulations may have given him a suitable pretext to arrest Sarah Everard without much suspicion, even in normal times prostitutes are liable to arrest on various pretexts, so could be abducted by someone who can appear to be a policeman.

Also very concerning is his reported nickname of "The rapist". I'm sure that is also being investigated. It's possible that it was based on unprovable rumours or his attitude, but it seems a rather extreme nickname to give someone. A reasonable organisation would not permit it to be used for one of its employees, and should be highly suspicious of anyone who accepts it as their name.

[headshot]

If you like true crime, there’s an excellent drama called “Mindhunter” on Netflix. It’s about the formation of the first US police unit to actively deal with serial killers.

[Stephanie]

While it is certainly true that prostitution isn't illegal in England, it is subject to sufficient prejudice in current society that prostitutes are much easier to subject to criminality - especially violence. That same prejudice makes his employment of an escort for a wedding look very bad (I could imagine a wealthy couple deciding to do it as a joke if the wife couldn't go - especially if it would wind up some other guest, but nothing about the story suggests that was his attitude). Couzens also had another incident where a prostitute turned up at his workplace and refused to leave until he was called back from patrol and went to an ATM to get money to pay her. It would be a good idea to track her down and verify she is still alive. Given also that prostitutes are at greater risk of murder (due to the fact that their work requires them to be alone with someone in circumstances which often need to be kept secret), I'm sure there are detectives already investigating the possibility that Couzens has hired someone and killed them, and I could easily believe that he has done so several times. While covid regulations may have given him a suitable pretext to arrest Sarah Everard without much suspicion, even in normal times prostitutes are liable to arrest on various pretexts, so could be abducted by someone who can appear to be a policeman.

Also very concerning is his reported nickname of "The rapist". I'm sure that is also being investigated. It's possible that it was based on unprovable rumours or his attitude, but it seems a rather extreme nickname to give someone. A reasonable organisation would not permit it to be used for one of its employees, and should be highly suspicious of anyone who accepts it as their name.

I believe the nickname was at least partly related to him making women officers uncomfortable.

[Martin Y]

Also very concerning is his reported nickname of "The rapist". I'm sure that is also being investigated. It's possible that it was based on unprovable rumours or his attitude, but it seems a rather extreme nickname to give someone. A reasonable organisation would not permit it to be used for one of its employees, and should be highly suspicious of anyone who accepts it as their name.

I assumed it was something people called him behind his back because he was so creepy. Seems unlikely they'd call him that to his face, or that they thought it was literally true.

[purplehaze]

In relation to this question, my answer would be, in my opinion, a yes.

Often serial killers who are not caught get fed up and make 'mistakes'. It seems to me that Couzens did everything by the serial killer book to get caught. I would posit to add even to behave in such a way that the public would intervene in the last murder he committed - though I understand that this view is highly controversial, given this was Sarah Everard.

I prefer real life crime and this one in particular stuck with me. The murder of Elaine O'Hara.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Elaine_O%27Hara

Her murderer, Graham Dwyer, architect, often went to England and the nature of her murder did bring up the possibility that he had done this before and since. He hadn't finished his murder spree when he murdered her, some believe, because her body was discovered purely by accident. It was an unusually dry and hot summer in Ireland which led to water levels dropping in the reservoir where he had deposited her body.

I have also no doubt at all that Sutcliffe and Shipman would have done the same, continued to kill, but were stopped.

[purplehaze]

Also we must never forget the importance of grooming when it comes to a serial killer, male I would add, because females do not groom - they are not socialised from birth to do this.

Couzens, at the age of 24 had a fourteen year old 'girlfriend'. He used sex workers habitually, used p.rnography - I'm not going to comment on the 'degree' of this.

So by the age of 24 he was abusive, which also suggests he had previous proclivities. His age is 48. That's a long 'career' being abusive. This most certainly was not an escalation to murder. In fact I believe he probably started out exposing his penis in public from a very early age, pre puberty.

It matters not the work gossip, that is easily dismissed if it comes to an appeal.

[Bird on a Fire]

I also said he seemed very clever but I just listened to the interview and... he ain't. All that means is that he's probably planned it out for longer and practiced more. He clearly thought he'd never get caught and his story was piss-poor.

He left her phone switched on and close to her while he committed the crimes. Which meant that her approximate location could be tracked retrospectively. I guess he never watched CSI, or understood the technical bits if he did.

That does seem to undermine the idea that he was experienced. Everyone knows phones are traceable.

I'm not sure how common the "wanting to get caught" trope is outside of films and TV. Very few serial killers get caught today, which suggests that any out there are good enough at covering their tracks.

Rates of recidivism for sex offenders seem to be under 20% http://lanternproject.org.uk/library/re ... ecidivism/ Which has the unfortunate implication that a lot of assaults are done by first-timers who never get caught.

I agree that there were strong warning signs with Couzens and he was in no way fit to be a police officer. The Met must be harbouring many more such individuals, which is troubling, and I hope there's a review and they all lose their jobs/duties now.

[Millennie Al]

He left her phone switched on and close to her while he committed the crimes. Which meant that her approximate location could be tracked retrospectively. I guess he never watched CSI, or understood the technical bits if he did.

That does seem to undermine the idea that he was experienced. Everyone knows phones are traceable.

I'm not sure how common the "wanting to get caught" trope is outside of films and TV. Very few serial killers get caught today, which suggests that any out there are good enough at covering their tracks.

I very much doubt the wanting to get caught effect is real. Instead I expect some get complacent and make mistakes. The phone mentioned above may well be an example of that. Maybe he thought he had turned off the phone. Or that it could be used to mislead the investigation, but he forgot some step.

Rates of recidivism for sex offenders seem to be under 20% http://lanternproject.org.uk/library/re ... ecidivism/ Which has the unfortunate implication that a lot of assaults are done by first-timers who never get caught.

That's only the implication if conviction has no effect. Otherwise it's possible that an offentder would commit hundreds of crimes, but once caught have only a 20% of committing another, which would mean that the vast majority are commited by only a small number of offenders (and that if you catch them, the number of offences will fall dramatically , which is an effect that can be used to estimate the number of offenders).

[IvanV]

The Met must be harbouring many more such individuals, which is troubling, and I hope there's a review and they all lose their jobs/duties now.

And one can just imagine them starting some eiher ineffective or inappropriate witch-hunt.

Although Operation Countryman only succeeded in prosecuting about 3 officers, despite finding extensive evidence of corruption. Nevertheless about 700 saw the writing on the wall and resigned. So curiously even an ineffective investigation can clean the stables.

The idea of police officers hamstrung from doing their jobs by excessive admin and bureaucratic restrictions on doing the obvious thing, so that pushing the boundaries is the only way of getting anywhere, is very popular in detective fiction. In a story, this police officer threatening to make something up to arrest the individual I'll make something up (partway down) is only doing what fictional detectives do all the time to get the Evil People into custody.

It is that old conundrum that the power to operate effectively is not easy to separate from powers that can be abused.

[Bird on a Fire]

The Met must be harbouring many more such individuals, which is troubling, and I hope there's a review and they all lose their jobs/duties now.

And one can just imagine them starting some eiher ineffective or inappropriate witch-hunt.

Although Operation Countryman only succeeded in prosecuting about 3 officers, despite finding extensive evidence of corruption. Nevertheless about 700 saw the writing on the wall and resigned. So curiously even an ineffective investigation can clean the stables.

The idea of police officers hamstrung from doing their jobs by excessive admin and bureaucratic restrictions on doing the obvious thing, so that pushing the boundaries is the only way of getting anywhere, is very popular in detective fiction. In a story, this police officer threatening to make something up to arrest the individual I'll make something up (partway down) is only doing what fictional detectives do all the time to get the Evil People into custody.

It is that old conundrum that the power to operate effectively is not easy to separate from powers that can be abused.

One wonders how much of a role the police have played in getting that particular trope into the public consciousness...